Page 49 of The Bratva's Forced Kidnapped Bride
“Sure,” I said, a total lie.
I wasn’t worried about him getting the drop on me. I was as good as dead anyway if Masha was killed. My heart would just grow cold and stop beating without any of her cousins needing to lift a finger. A few moments after he ended the call, a text message came through with the locations. I fed them into the map on my phone and studied them. Every second I took to decide where to look first felt like sand slipping through an hourglass, and time was almost up.
Where to go? I tried to think like someone hellbent on revenge, not a difficult task. One of the locations was closer than the other, and I yearned to go to that one because it meant I’d get there faster. But the other wasn’t much further, and it was more remote. A place with no neighbors to hear any screaming.
My stomach twisted, and I put the thought out of my mind. I had only ever heard Masha scream with pleasure, and that was all I ever wanted to hear. My fear for her safety was keeping me from making a decision, too scared I’d get it wrong and be late.
To hell with deciding. No more wasting time. I peeled out of the rest area and headed for the first location, not too far out of the way of the next if I was wrong. But I prayed to anyone or anything that might listen that I was right and I’d have Masha back in my arms where she belonged.
No one was listening. The first place was a bust, a deserted, ramshackle house at the edge of a broken-down neighborhood, with most of the houses boarded up and overlooked by even the most desperate squatters.
Gripping the steering wheel, I headed to the second, the last location that Daniil had given me. After that, I didn’t know what I’d do. As I drove, I called the last person I could trust, my pilot, who’d been waiting at the airport for further instructions once he completed the inspection.
I filled him in, asking if he could round up a few people he trusted with his life, as I trusted mine with his. He could shoot as well as he could fly, and he often complained he didn’t get to see enough action.
“You might actually get to bash some heads tonight,” I said. “Be ready.”
I finally pulled up to a narrow, dusty road leading off the only slightly wider road I’d been winding down for a solid five minutes. My GPS swore this was the right way, so I pulled the car onto the bumpy track and slowly inched forward until I caught a glimpse of a shack over a small rise, half hidden behind a clump of trees that were barely hanging on in the extended drought.
I backtracked, parking the car as far off the lane as I could, behind an outcropping of the many boulders that encroached on the driveway. As I was about to get out and make my way closer, my phone buzzed shrilly in my pocket.
“Damn it,” I hissed, pulling it out. The same unknown number. Daniil. I ignored it and silenced the phone, but not before I saw a message come through.
We’re close. Teams are half an hour out from both locations. Wait for backup.
I had no idea what, if anything, was waiting for me in that lonesome shack up the hill, and backup didn’t sound bad, even if it was comprised of Fokins. But every fiber of my being warred with waiting, even if it was the sensible choice that might keep us both alive if Masha was indeed up there.
Then I heard a scream from all the way down the long drive, and I was out of the car and belting toward the shack. No more waiting. Masha needed me.
Chapter 37 - Masha
I had no idea how long I was unconscious, maybe only a few minutes, maybe well into the night. I didn’t really know if it was day or night. Rolling over on the dirty wood floor brought all my pain back to life, and I pried open my eyes to see I was in the shack, so it hadn’t been a particularly realistic nightmare. The chair legs wavered into my vision, and I realized that at some point, my hands had been untied, but beyond getting repeatedly smacked, I didn’t remember too much.
I imagined myself standing and trying the door, raising the metal bar, and opening it to step outside into freedom. For a second, I even thought I was doing it, but only my arm reached feebly toward the front of the small shack. It took several minutes to roll onto my hands and knees, and by then I was sucking air through my busted lip, my cracked ribs shrieking for me to lay back down. I spit out a mouthful of blood and began to lower myself back to my curled-up position.
But I couldn’t give up like that. Baldy and Greasy would be back again, maybe even with their boss, who wanted to watch my demise himself. I had to ignore the pain because I didn’t have much longer to attempt an escape.
A heavy footstep fell outside the door. I didn’t have any more time at all. The burst of fear was intense but brief, and I rocked back on my heels to give them my most defiant stare. Baldy came in first, looking annoyed, then amused. He gripped me under my armpits and dumped me back on the chair. Greasy clamped his paw around my shoulder to keep me from slumping to the side or sliding back to the floor.
It felt like I was on a boat in heavy seas, and I figured that was from so many blows to the side of the head. A big, blurry hand rushed toward my face, but I hardly felt it if he hit me at all.
“Ready to start over?” one of them asked. Their voices were remarkably similar, gravelly and mean.
“Not really,” I rasped through my sore throat. Had they choked me, or was it raw from swallowing so much of my own blood? I shook my head to clear it, but it didn’t work.
I felt what came next, a solid punch to my already battered ribs. A scream tore from my mouth, ripping up my vocal chords. Oh, right, the screaming, I almost forgot about that. It was impossible not to make a sound after a while, and when they were such experts at inflicting pain.
Just like I was. And they’d feel ten times worse when I was free. When Anatoli found me. That hope was still keeping me upright, but it was getting harder and harder to cling to, especially when I could barely cling to consciousness. Their angry questions echoed as if they were far away, though their fists were definitely close. I continued to ignore them, drifting off into a daze.
Something jolted me out of my torpor. Greasy had whipped out a knife, and the gleam of metal from the dim lightbulb had me jerking my head up as he waved it under my nose.
“This is the last time I’m going to ask,” he said. “And you’re going to answer or die.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to answer. Didn’t he get it? I wasn’t going to say a word against my family, myself, or Anatoli. These freaks might kill me, but they’d have to skulk back to their boss and admit their failure.
He slashed the big blade right under my chin as Baldy grabbed my hair to wrench my head back. They were just showboating; they weren’t going to slice my neck open. No matter how I tried to convince myself of that, my heart was faster than a drumroll in my aching chest. I didn’t want my last view on this earth to be the side of Baldy’s shiny head or that dusty, dim lightbulb.
Cold metal pressed against my skin, and I heaved backwards with all my remaining strength, letting out a shrill, piercing scream of pure terror and desperation. The chair toppled backward, and I hit the ground hard, knocking the air out of my lungs and ending the scream with a grunt. Baldy’s hand gripped my shirt and pulled me up, but just as quickly dropped me to flop back against the hard chair.
